MediaWatch: April 1998
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Belated Flowers
Belated Flowers. Gennifer Flowers, the long-forgotten lover of Bill Clinton, appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America March 16 to discuss Kathleen Willey, who accused the President of sexual harassment. Co-host Lisa McRee asked Flowers: "Reaction to Ms. Willey and her story stands in stark contrast to the reaction to you and your story, why do you think that is?" McRee also inquired: "Patricia Ireland of the National Organization of Women said last night that she was deeply troubled by Willey’s account. Why didn’t feminists rally behind you and Ms. Lewinsky?"
One reason: Flowers’ mid-March appearance on ABC came six years and six weeks after her press conference claiming an affair with Clinton. She first appeared on the Today show in January 1998, after Clinton admitted the affair. By contrast, journalists charging George Bush with an affair in 1992 appeared within 24 hours on Good Morning America and on CBS This Morning, which has yet to have Flowers in for a chat.
Hillary and Jane’s Big Adventure. Columnist Cal Thomas was the first to assess CNN’s month-long March tribute to "A Century of Women" on the show Perspectives: "The history of women is a good subject, but CNN’s treatment is more ideological than documentary....it is largely one perspective that could have been titled ‘A Century of Liberal Women.’" Thomas noted the series included only one conservative woman (Phyllis Schlafly) while it featured tens of feminist icons. Hillary Clinton introduced and concluded each program, with Jane Fonda serving as narrator.
During the "Pursuit of Happiness" installment, Fonda offered painter Georgia O’Keefe as the feminist ideal: "O’Keefe found a champion in Alfred Stieglitz....a brilliant photographer as well as an influential art dealer. He was also married to another woman when he became O’Keefe’s mentor, promoter, and ultimately her lover. They defied convention by living openly with one another.... O’Keefe and Stieglitz finally got married, but she had no use for the traditional role of wife and mother. Eventually, they chose to lead separate lives."
The "Pursuit of Happiness" segment also promoted the need for abortion: "The ‘privilege’ of childbirth took the lives of 300,000 women between the years of 1910 and 1925. That’s more than all the men who died in American wars, from the Revolution until World War I. Women were desperate for a way out of constant pregnancies. They found a champion in Margaret Sanger." Sanger’s opposition to letting "inferior" races reproduce went unmentioned, but CNN rehashed old CBS footage of Sanger attacking the Catholic Church’s opposition to contraceptives: "Everything bears out that it’s an unnatural attitude to take. And what do they know? I mean, after all, they’re celibates. They don’t know love." A marriage-breaker and a Catholic-basher: just two of CNN’s female champions.
Illinois Extremist? When conservative Peter Fitzgerald defeated "moderate" (read: pro-abortion) Loleta Didrickson in the Illinois GOP primary for U.S. Senate on March 17, the media predicted disaster. Associated Press reporter Mike Robinson began: "It could be the Republican Party’s worst nightmare... Republicans threw away their chance of winning a U.S. Senate seat two years ago by nominating a pro-gun, anti-abortion conservative who was crushed by a Democrat in the fall election. They may have done it again."
CBS anchor John Roberts sounded the same alarm: "Conservative Peter Fitzgerald, who wants to legalize concealed weapons and ban abortions, won the GOP nomination over moderate Loleta Didrickson. Many Republicans say she would have had a better chance of beating [Sen. Carol] Moseley-Braun."
On Inside Politics, CNN analyst William Schneider suggested Didrickson "looked like the perfect candidate to defeat Moseley-Braun, a moderate woman who supports gun control and abortion rights." Even though they mentioned pro-life, pro-gun Democrat Glenn Poshard’s victory in the gubernatorial primary, CNN didn’t explain how that meshes with Didrickson’s "moderate" appeal. None mentioned the Illinois GOP nominated a moderate woman for the Senate in 1990 — Lynn Martin, who lost to Paul Simon, 65 to 35 percent.
